My family is staying with me for the holiday and i'm so happy to have them. They had been looking forward to tasting my cupcakes for so long and they weren't exactly excited about pumpkin cupcakes but it was the next thing in the book and i had no choice. I used two eggs for this recipe like i did for the banana and chocolate cupcakes. I've figured out that when there's a puree in the batter two eggs are used instead of one.

I've actually never tasted pumpkin before. I used a puree and i didn't really like the smell so i couldn't bring myself to taste it till it was cooked. The puree was smooth and it mixed in nicely.

Surprisingly they turned out nice. Used a cream cheese frosting and of course its the best so it just made it even better. It had a softer and moister texture than other cupcakes i've made. Final touch, cinnamon sprinkled on top.

My mum and i went to visit my grandfather today. Haven't seen him in years so it was really nice to see him and to meet an aunt of mine for the first time. It was also my step-grandmother's birthday so i thought this would be a nice one to take for the occasion. After some lovely jollof rice with beef, shaki(tripe) and dodo, we had brandy and the cupcakes for dessert. Yum! Wonderful family and good food together is priceless.

13peaches and cream cupcakes

Another lovely one. The ones with fruit always come out being the best. Making it was pretty straight forward like the strawberry cheesecake and the coconut and pineapple cupcakes. Peach slices on the bottom, vanilla cake and vanilla frosting with soft light brown sugar sprinkled on top.

It was my dear cousin tele's birthday today and i thought the marshmallow cupcakes would be just right for a nine year old on her birthday. It wasn't the next recipe in the book but there are no strict rules so i skipped a few to get to this one. I got a pack of pink and white candles and it perfect.

12marshmallow cupcakes

Baked vanilla cupcakes and made hollows in the centre for the melted marshmallows. I put twelve medium marshmallows in a heatproof bowl over simmering water to melt.

Once i started pouring it into the cake holes it was a bit messy because it got thick fast so i had to reheat it a few times.

Then for the frosting i had to throw mini marshmallows into vanilla frosting. I thought i could get away with just cutting up the medium marshmallows into little bits but i forgot how sticky the inside of marshmallows were so it was not an easy task but it was done.

Because of the bits of marshmallows, spreading this frosting on the cakes didn't go so smoothly. Wasn't so bad though, my only problem was getting just the frosting on the sides without the bits getting in the way. I've realized that when i'm filling the paper cases with the batter making them too full makes frosting harder because the sides that rise over the edge can easily fall apart.

11green tea cupcakesHere we go again, chocolate. Another weird one. Didn't think there will be chocolate in green tea cupcakes but there was. Don't know if it was because i didn't use the green tea the book suggested(Matcha) or i simple got it wrong but i really didn't like this one. From the moment it got out of the oven it reminded me of my failed red velvet, from the smell to the colour to the way it looked. I think its tricky combining cocoa powder with stuff. Here its the green tea and it didn't go well. Totally killed the awesomeness of chocolate. I looked all over, for days for the Match green tea the book suggested but i couldn't find it so i decided to use what i found- Clipper. As i did with the lavender i infused it in the milk.

The frosting was the only thing i liked(visually). I tore the tea bags and poured the actual tea leaves in the frosting.

I just did a little more research and i realized that i really should have waited till i found the Matcha green tea powder the book suggested. Its something entirely different. I'll try this again with the proper green tea but i'm not really in a hurry to do so.

There are quite a number of chocolate recipes in this book. I'm not crazy about bananas and wasn't sure how well it would go with the chocolate. I went to the supermarket this morning to get what i needed and on my way back home the bag dropped and all the spice bottles broke. I don't understand how it happened but luckily someone was nice enough to help me. Since all i needed was a teaspoon each of ground cinnamon and ground ginger, i tied them up in separate bags, went home and poured them out till i got to the bottom to avoid getting glass in. What a waste. At least it was useful for the one thing i bought it for.

10banana and chocolate cupcakes

The spices gave the batter a nice brownish colour and tasted so nice and rich. I've never liked ginger(i actually don't remember why) but this has made me consider cooking with it. Unlike the other recipes, this one needed two eggs. I wonder why.

One and a half mashed bananas. I love cling film. It is useful in more ways than covering things and storage. I put the banana in the cling film and mashed it with my fist on the countertop then mixed it into the batter by hand.

The cake itself didn't have any chocolate in it so the frosting was the chocolate part of these cupcakes. My favourite part of this was the grated dark chocolate on top. It looked like pencil shavings and it was so beautiful.

I loved the texture of the cake. The taste of the banana wasn't too overwhelming and it went well with the chocolate frosting.

It was my friends birthday today and she planned to have drinks with a few friends. I thought it was the perfect time to make the next recipe in the book, Coconut and pineapple cupcakes. Now i can't hear coconut and pineapple and not think of Malibu rum. That's one of my favourite drinks and i think it goes perfectly with pineapple so i thought 'why not make some Piña colada?'. I've never made it before so i went all out and did my research.Did you know

The piña colada has been the official beverage of Puerto Rico since 1978.

After looking at several different recipes for this cocktail i finally formulated mine based on them and i was ready to try it. My friend is staying over so while we were getting ready to go out i made it.

Temi's Piña colada recipe

50ml(one part) malibu rum

50 ml(one part) coconut milk

150ml(three parts) pineapple juice

A few cubes of ice

Preparation

Put the ice, malibu rum, coconut milk and pineapple juice in a blender and mix till well blended. Pour into two glasses and put a small piece of pineapple on the rims.

makes 2

It was fantastic and definitely made getting ready even more fun. Beautiful start to the night. I made two more rounds. The first piece of pineapple i put on the edge of the glass was too heavy so it fell into the glass but i left it there and i think i'm going to make it a part of the recipe because it was a nice way to end it. I'll be making this again very very soon.

9

coconut and pineapple cupcakes

Earlier today, before the Piña colada, i went out to get the special ingredients for this recipe, coconut milk, tinned pineapple rings and desiccated coconut. Making this was a lot like the strawberry cheesecake cupcakes but what i didn't expect was for it to be so good. It had pineapples at the bottom, cake batter over it, coconut frosting and the desiccated coconut on top which made it a bit crunchy like the crushed digestive. The coconut milk(which i've never used before) was thicker than regular milk and more like yogurt.

The frosting had to be beaten for 5-10 minutes till it was white and i must admit most times i don't beat frosting as long as it should be but this time i was really excited about the white frosting so i did. It was so worth it.

Same mix as the chocolate cupcakes but with nuts. Love it! Nutella and whole hazenuts were the extras in this recipe. When the cupcakes were baked and cool, i hollowed out a small section in the centre of each one and filled with a dollop of nutella then used a knife to smoothen it out like a bricklayer filling up holes in a wall.

Even the frosting had nutella. Icing sugar, butter and milk were mixed first with the electric mixer till it was light and fluffy then the nutella was mixed in by hand. It had a soft velvety texture which i really liked. The nuts on top gave it a crunch and it came together nicely.

This is one reason why i love this country and why i would never have attempted to bake through this book in Nigeria. Where in Nigeria would you find culinary dried lavender? I didn't find it at the supermarket but I found it at lavenderworld online. I also ordered one pot of the lavender plant because i needed the flowers to decorate but what i didn't know was that it wouldn't come with the flowers, unfortunately lavender doesn't bloom till summer so i'm stuck with a pot of soil and leaves. Anyway, i found it weird that fragrant flowers could be put into cupcakes so i thought it was a good time to make another animation. This one took longer than chocolate love but it was fun coming up with the concept as i went along. The song is called 'no love' from Erykah Badu's album Baduizm and I used Adobe Flash, Illustrator and Premiere Pro.

7lavender cupcakes

To get the flavour out of the dried lavender i had to put it in the milk for a few hours then strain. When i first put it in and stirred, it felt like it was cereal probably because its the only thing i put in a bowl with milk.

after a few hours in the milk

With a spoon, i removed all the lavender from the milk, put it in some cling film then wrapped it up, made a hole at the bottom and squeezed to get all the flavour out.

The ingredients were basically the same as the vanilla cupcakes minus the vanilla extract. The frosting was also made with the lavender infused milk. The only problem i had here was with the colouring. I needed purple colouring and since i didn't find it i thought red + blue colouring would give me purple but i was wrong. The blue was too light and i had to add more than a few drop. It still didn't change colour and i didn't want to make it pink so i decided to settle for a really really light purple. You can't even see the colour in this picture but its there.

It tasted quite good even though it was like eating flowers. No i haven't eaten flowers before but taste buds are dependent on the nose and thats why i could connect the two.

I thought it would be fun to digitally make the cupcake look the way it was meant too.

This is not from the hummingbird bakery cookbook but i really felt like sharing this so this is a quick break from the book. I had some pancakes a couple of weeks ago at a restaurant close to my house and I've been craving home-made pancakes ever since. They were really good but there's something better about cooking something you love in the comfort of your home and eating in your pyjamas.

fluffy american pancakesI got the recipe from the BBC food website. Heres the link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/fluffyamericanpancak_74828

the first one

the others always come out smoother and
evenly coloured

I still had the left over strawberries because I decided not to make another batch of strawberry cheesecake cupcakes(as there are so many recipes and it would have been a waste of time no matter how delicious they were) so even though the recipe didn't say so i chopped them and threw them into the batter after making three plain ones.

made seven

dusted some icing sugar over the stack

You have to try this! Great for a sunday breakfast or brunch. Topped with maple syrup, butter, and if you can get your hands on fruit like strawberries which i used or blueberries which are generally suggested, they make it just perfect. It was moist, light and fluffy. It wasn't too sweet and the fruit gave a good balance.